Just heard from my Nikon distributor that D200 and 18-200VR will be officially released on Dec 15 worldwide. However, they don't expect to have the first delivery until Dec 19. I am not getting the D200 but has colleagues who are intereseted in it. However, I think I am going to get the 18-200VR for a smallish walk around end and retire my 18-70mm

Aquatica will have D200 housing ready early '06 with a very attractive price.
It will be based on the very successful D70 / 20D model that have proven very popular for its compact
size and easy to access buttons. The AD200 will also feature some of the new ideas incorporated into the New D2X like removable saddle
and spring loaded internal contact point that have made the AD2x the success that it has been.

For previous Aquatica housing users all current ports, extenions and gears work flawlessly with the new D200.
Look out for progress reports on this most anticipated housing.
If you are interested in getting on, contact your Aquatica dealer who are already taking pre-order.

this weekend in Bangkok, there is a Photoshow exhibition and D200 was available for demonstration. It was a bit hard to judge AF performence as the lens on the camera again, is the 18-200VR AF-S. I am not sure how fast it would perform with 105mm +/- teleconverter but with AF-S lens, it is incredibly fast even under low light situation. The new macro ringflash also looks very nice. Wish I can house those
However most interesting thing I just found out is not related to D200 but it is something that has been mentioned here from time to time. Unfortunately again, I was told not to mention anything just yet but I expect by sometimes next year, an item on my wish list and on quite a few Nikon users' wish list will come true. Btw, I already am on the waiting list for it

Would you mind writing your nikon wish list down so I can take a guess on what is coming up next year. It would not be cheating this way, would'nt it ? LOL, .
What did you think of the 18-200VR ? Is that lens can be housed at all by any of the housing ?? (I'm about to buy the D200 ( I guess just ordering for right now), I'm still trying to decide on the lenses and when the housings start coming out on the housing and strobes.

Sylvie, As far as 18-200VR goes, I don't think that it will be a good candidate for underwater use. For one thing, minimum focusing distance is 50 cm so it won't be all that useful for macro unless you use strong diopter.
Secondly, port will be very tricky. When fully extended at 200mm end, it is about twice the length of the lens at 18mm lens. If you use flat port, you can pretty much use only the telephoto end as you will see part of the ports at wide angle end. If you use a domeport, when properly position for wide angle end , there won't be enough clearance in the dome for the lens to fully extend. So I think this will be pretty much a land lens only.

As far as my wish list, I think it is not hard to figure from my sig, certain items that are missing Nuff said before I get into trouble and they won't tell me anymore inside scoop

Do you know what I would really like from Nikon? Fast focusing long macros, something like AFS 105, 70-180 or 200 micros, these would be awesome, but I don't expect they will produce any.

Boi: I don't think you are missing anything in your sig! Come on, tell us the inside scoop Do you really think Nikon checks these forums? If they want an information to remain secret they won't tell anybody!

Boi: I don't think you are missing anything in your sig! Come on, tell us the inside scoop Do you really think Nikon checks these forums? If they want an information to remain secret they won't tell anybody!

Well, over here D200 will be available for pick up next week. Both D200 and 18-200DX are now in stock but the distributer here are not allowed release them until the rest of SE Asia get their stash as well. So officially Dec 19 for D200 and Dec 23rd for 18-200DX over here.

Alex, I am curious about your comment on F2.8 12-24mm. Practically I am not sure that I see the advantage, especially for UW use. For underwater use, I imagine that most of the time, you would need to set the F stop at F 7.1-9 or around about that but certainly more than F5.6 to get the entire virtual image on the dome in focus. Also being stuck at 1/320s shutterspeed when using strobe, I am not sure how handy F2.8 would be underwater.

At F9, I am not sure how much better the image from the F2.8 12-24mm would be over the current 12-24mm.

What I would really like is a top quality DX wide angle. The 12-24mm f4 is pretty much the equivalent of the AFD Nikon 18-35mm f3.5-f4.5. Although seemingly very similar to the 18-35 the Nikon 17-35mm AFS f2.8 is an amazing piece of glass, for many poeple Nikon's best ever lens. I would like the equivalent of this lens optically in a 12-24mm AFS.

So your right, it is not the aperture I want, but a 12-24mm with the same optical quality of the 17-35mm. Everytime I put that lens I my camera and see the results I am happy that I did. The sharpness and colours are astonishing.

Now I can see, a FF Nikon (hopefully with D2X body) to use for wide angle and keep the D2X for macro so you can still use the same housing and just switch otu the body/lens as needed! I think I like this dream but it might just cost one of my kidney!

I think the only need for full frame would be for more resolution, say up to 20MP, as I think the DX format is limited to 15MP. I am not convinced that Nikon would solve the corner sharpness issues with wide angles any better than Canon. So I would only consider going full frame if I really needed ~20MP.

Also I think that the 10.5mm on DX is a better lens than the 16mm on FF. And as this is my main lens I would have to think very carefully about it. A wide angle rectilinear is a lens I would use less than 5% of the time anyway.

I would like to dream like Boi that Nikon might make a full frame camera in the D2 chassis. But I don't believe it. But I do think that when they go FF they will give the camera a DX crop mode.